Shape Sensory Bottles

Make learning about shapes FUN for your little learners using shape sensory bottles! It’s like a shape hide-and-seek in a bottle. Students can shake, twist, and flip the bottles to find shapes. These shape sensory bottles are perfect for quiet time, the math center, morning table time, or use during transitions when students have to wait.

To enhance the lesson, I created FREE Shape Hunt printables (with many options) that you can use with these bottles too. Students can mark off or trace the shapes (aka fun fine motor practice) as they find them.

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Let me share with you how I made each bottle!

Hair Gel Foam Shape Sensory Bottle

Grab an empty bottle
Add ¼ cup water, squirt in about the same amount of hair gel
Add foam shapes
Repeat 3 times or until the bottle is full
Hot glue or superglue the lid closed
Cover the top with tape

Then print the shape hunt of your choice and place it out for table time or a math center! For this shape hunt, students will draw the shapes they find.

Rice Shape Sensory Bottle

Grab an empty bottle
Fill with colored rice and shape buttons
- to color rice: place dry rice in a baggie with a few drops of liquid watercolor, shake until coated, and lay flat on foil to dry
Hot glue or superglue the lid closed
Cover the top with tape

For this shape hunt, students make tally marks for each shape they find. This is just another way to create a graph and represent data.

Bean Pattern Block Sensory Bottle

Grab an empty bottle
Fill with beans and foam pattern blocks
Hot glue or superglue the lid closed
Cover the top with tape

Do you see how simple it is to make shape sensory bottles for the math center? If you have other shape manipulatives or shape beads, use those in your sensory bottles. The best part about sensory bottles is that you can’t make them “wrong”! Have your students help you make them! They will not only enjoy being part of the creative process, but they will also be more excited and invested in their learning.

If you love sensory bottles as much as me, you will want to make more for holidays, seasons, or other concepts!

Click HERE to check all of them out!

Learning about shapes is a fun theme and concept to do with little learners!

You can check out my favorite 2D shape activities here.